Fern Walk

For the second year in a row, we were privileged to be a part of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park Wildflower Pilgrimage.  What a great time we had!

One of our classes was a fern walk.

Here is a list of ferns we identified:
Ebony's Spleenwort
Resurrection
Christmas
Hay-scented
Cinnamon
Grape
Protruding Bladder
Maidenhair Spleenwort
Rattlesnake
New York
Southern Lady
Running Ground Cedar
Adder's tongue (which looks NOTHING like a fern!)

I entered the class knowing not much more about ferns than that I liked them, and walked away with a wealth of knowledge.  I'm sure I won't remember it all, but here are some highlights:

A fern frond (leaf) is made up of the raccus (middle stem), pinna (individual leaflets), and stipe (continuation of raccus past the pinnae.

Ferns are classified according to "clumped" or "colonial".  Clumped ferns grow up from one spot in the ground.  Colonial ferns grow horizontally, sending out shoots (rhizomes) that create a colony of ferns, all of the same plant.

A "fiddle head" is the fern frond as it is growing and unfolding.  I thought this was a name of one specific fern.  Many ferns emerge with a fiddle head.